February 29, 2012

Five Women's Swimmers Named to NCAA Championship Field

INDIANAPOLIS -- The field of 281 qualifying swimmers for the 2012 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming & Diving Championships was revealed today and it includes five Ivy League student-athletes.

Columbia junior Katie Meili leads the way for the Ivies in terms of events qualified for as she cracked the field in the 200 IM, the 100-breast and the 200-breast, all of which she won Ivy titles in last weekend at the 2012 Ivy League Championships. Meili's qualifying times all came in those title-winning swims, including a 1:57.28 in the 200 IM, a 59.64 in the 100-breast and a 2:10.40 in the 200-breast.

Harvard leads the way for the League in terms of entrants as the 2012 Ivy League Champion Crimson boast two qualifiers including senior Meghan Leddy and freshman Courtney Otto. Leddy qualified in the 200-back. Though she won the Ivy title in that event last weekend, her qualifying time of 1:54.92 came back on Dec. 2, 2011. Otto qualified in both the 400 IM and the 200-fly. Her qualifying time of 4:10.22 in the 400 IM came as she won that event last weekend at the Ivy championship, while her 1:56.94 qualifying time in the 200-fly also came back on Dec. 2, 2011.

Princeton's Lisa Boyce and Yale's Alex Forrester qualified for the 2012 NCAA Championships with times posted at the 2012 Ivy League Championship. Boyce's qualifying time of 22.45 in the 50-free came when she won the 2012 Ivy League title and she posted her 100-back qualifying time of 52.96 in prelims last week. She went on to also win the Ivy title in that event (53.54). Forrester's qualifying time of 52.51 100-fly came in last weekend's prelims, and she went on to win the 2012 Ivy League title in 52.53.

The 2012 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming & Diving Championships will take place March 15-17 in Auburn, Ala.